The invention is concerned with a liftable steering house or control cabin, more specially applicable to a sailing or floating vessel, like a pushing tug, in which the house or cabin is situated on the deck in its lowest position, whereas said house or cabin is brought into its lifted position by a lifting mechanism, which moves the house or cabin mainly at least vertically and parallel to itself during lifting or lowering, all the above in such a way, that at least both end positions are working positions of the house or cabin.
Liftable steering houses of this type are generally known, for instance used as a steering house in inland water traffic. Steering houses generally should be placed as high as possible in order to allow the skipper to have as much outlook as possible not only on the sailing water, but also on the vessel itself. However, many waterways are spanned by rigid bridges for which such a house would be in too high a position. During the trip of the vessel the steering house should be lowered when passing under such a bridge, and preferably as low as possible, in order to make as great a number of waterways as possible navigable, more specially in case the vessel is unloaded. The generally adopted construction for the lifting mchanism of said steering house consists of either a pair of scissor-shaped members or of vertically parallel guiding means. In both cases the lifting device is situated under the steering house and on the deck and in the latter case even also under the deck. In all cases the lifting device occupies deck space and requires even in the lowest position nevertheless a certain constructional height above the deck. Therefore the steering house cannot be lowered so far until it is nearly on the deck.
In case said steering house is used on pushing vessels, on which vessels the necessity of a good view is even more urgent than in the case of many conventional vessels, said steering house is always placed close after the bow and often on top of the deck house. Especially in the case of pushing vessels there are a number of disadvantages in relation to the known arrangement. The first disadvantage is concerned with the fact that especially with pushing vessels the front deck is a working deck on which the deck crew is busy regularly, for instance when coupling and uncoupling the tug to and from barges to be handled. The known lifting device occupies a major part of said deck space on the front deck. Another disadvantage is formed by the fact that the skipper cannot watch much from the steering house in its lifted position of what happens just in front of him on the fore deck, resulting in an increased risk of accidents. The invention aims to reduce these disadvantages.